[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by August

First, nobody calls our military "operators" except no nothing civilians and media shills. The Special Forces themselves hate the term.

Never said I was exclusively referring to the military, they are not the only organizations or individuals that use such weapons "professionally", hence my choice of the word operator.

Second, the purpose of the 2nd amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting, therefore the suitability of a firearm in that regard is irrelevant.

True, but proponents of such weapons sometimes justify ownership for hunting reasons, which I don't think is a valid argument.

Third, bullets are bullets. Even a 30-06 is "designed" to wound instead of kill outright if the target is large enough. Trust me, against Prairie Dogs and other varmints up to a Deer a 5.56 or 7.62mm is definitely a killing bullet.

You would consider using a 5.56 for hunting deer? As that would not be a round I would choose. 7.62 is a full length rifle cartridge, and not quite so popular as an assault rifle round due to the recoil and size. It is a popular hunting and sniping round due to its ballistics and better kill probability.

Rounds like the 5.56 were in many ways designed to maximize casualties to overload the enemy with (like the 5.56's tendency to tumble on entry), more so than the older style rounds.

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

What August said, also full auto fire does not really increase leathality unless you are at point blank range, it is used for suppression, pin down the enemy while others manouver to a position to take them out. People tend to have an aversion to sticking their head up with bullets cracking by over their head.
In the context of most shootings done by a lone gunman it would be a liability rather than an advantage, with organized groups though that changes quite a bit but assault rifles have a very short time where they are capable of providing supressing fire since the weapon overheats and seizes up, even with maschine guns designed for that role have to have frequent barrel changes t allow hot barrels to cool off while maintaining suppressing fire.

Full auto can be used in terror shootings to increase casualty numbers. Drive by shootings and terrorists opening up on crowds demonstrate that. Of course someone can spray and pray with a semi auto as well, but you can put more rounds out in a shorter time with full auto. These guys are not trying to suppress the targets, they are trying to cause as many civilian casualties as they can, barrels overheating and stuff like that are the least of their concerns as this is not a firefight.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Very true, but it also works the other way. Those of us who support gun ownership see a lot of alarmist yelling from the other side, rather than reasoned arguments. A lot of people who want to ban guns are of the "all guns are evil" variety, and talk of "assault rifles" and similar turns as part of a larger agenda.

As for "all those guns", polls of various types indicate that somewhere between 30% and 40% of all American households contain at least one gun.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ership-us-data

If we assume the lowest number (30%) and assume that no household has more than one gun (certainly not true, but taking the lowest possible numbers), that would mean that there are currently ninety million (90,000,000) privately owned guns in the United States. To someone who doesn't like guns that number might be truly alarming. To the gun-owner the next question would be "And how many of them were used to shoot somebody last year?"

I think a better question would be, how many more murders occurred because of easy access to firearms. Also how many legal weapons ended up in criminal hands and later used in the commission of a crime?

The simple fact is that most people are responsible citizens and have no desire to kill anyone else, even in the heat of an argument.

Maybe, but how many guns get stolen from "responsible citizens" each year? How do we know which people are going to be responsible with them and which are going to suddenly snap and use those weapons in a not so responsible way? Do we need to pull out the statistics comparing countries with easy access to guns vs countries without? Basic logic says that easier access increases the likelihood of use.

Most trite cliches are, but in this case it also happens to be true. Ban all guns. Good sheep will go along. Criminals will still find a way to get one. Also a majority of violent criminals tend to be young, strong and male. Weaker beings like women and us older guys become easy prey.

The statistics say otherwise in general. The notion that having armed citizens will keep the criminals at bay is laughable. Look at gang warfare for example, these kids will readily shoot at each other, and they know the other side is packing the same kind of weaponry they are and will definitely shoot back. Does that stop them in the slightest from attacking each other? Not one little bit. If anything it will only more likely increase the casualty rates as the criminal element will be even more inclined to shoot first.

As far as the criminals getting one, that is both true and false. In Canada for example it is more difficult and expensive to get the more heavily regulated/outlawed weapons (non hunting weapons or weapons with more than 5 rounds), and most criminals particularly street hoodlums do not have them. The only criminals that reliably have them are organized crime groups such as the mafia, hells angels, etc. but they are into major smuggling (guns and drugs), which is why they have them. Most of these weapons are smuggled in from the USA (and this is how the internal US policies on firearms affect more than just American citizens, most murdered committed with firearms that were obtained illegally in Canada came from the United States, and I wont even go into Mexico). The simple fact is that decreased public availability does affect criminal availability, particularly if the same is true for the surrounding countries (In Japan for example, guns are very difficult to acquire).

Here's another trite cliche for you: "God made men. Colonel Colt made them equal."

Ya, too bad that isn't true either. Still comes down to training, skill, experience, and willingness to shoot first. That generally tends to put the ball in the criminal's court particularly with the more recent trend with them entering the military for the training.


The thing is, is that I am not particularly anti-gun, I am ambivalent. In some ways I like guns and wouldn't mind owning an MP-5, an M4A1 and some other military weapons. But on the other hand I really have to strongly question the need for civilians to own such weapons, particularly given the costs associated with them to society. I also think most of the arguments put forth to justify ownership as being absurd when held up to rational scrutiny. Sure the idea of being able to defend oneself is a nice idea in theory, but does it really work that way most of the time? Most evidence seems to show that the safer countries are those that don't have piles of guns everywhere, particularly if the country also has strong social systems in place to help prevent crime in the first place (such as fairer distributions of wealth, equality, and opportunity).